Qualcomm says Motorola, Oppo and others will add satellite tech to phones.

BARCELONA—Qualcomm says Honor, Motorola, Nothing, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi are all working with the company to bring satellite connectivity to their smartphones. In particular, phone makers have started developing devices with Snapdragon satellite on board. Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Satellite at CES earlier this year, but has yet to name any hardware partners at MWC.

Qualcomm worked with Iridium to bring the Snapdragon satellite to life. It’s a global two-way messaging system that allows capable devices to send text messages back and forth when they’re off the grid. It relies on the Iridium network of low Earth orbit satellites using the L-band spectrum between 1GHz and 2.1GHz.

(Credit: Qualcomm)

Snapdragon Satellite is naturally similar to Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite on the iPhone 14 family. Emergency SOS lets you use your iPhone 14 to connect to satellites when there’s no cellular or Wi-Fi available. Using a special iPhone app, those in need can send text messages and local coordinates to facilitate rescues.

Apple’s Emergency SOS is available in the US, Canada and several European countries, according to Qualcomm. Snapdragon Satellite currently runs on devices based on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor in a handful of phones, including the Galaxy S23 and OnePlus 11 5G.

None of Qualcomm’s hardware partners have made specific announcements about bringing emergency messaging features to their phones.